In April, 1-800-Flowers.com hosted a contest called “There’s a New Bunny in Town” Photo contest, where participants shared a picture of their pet with a pair of bunny ears and enter the photo for a chance to win a grand prize of: 1 Year of pet food from Wag.com, a year’s supply of assorted products for dogs and dog lovers from Planet Dog and a $150 Savings Pass from 1800Flowers.com

Maria Mandel, who has an amazing service dog named Stacey Mae (Stacey has 18,000+ fans on Facebook) entered the contest on behalf of our friends at Lucky Dog Rescue. Then, she promoted the contest on Facebook begging others to vote for Stacey’s photo… so that she could donate the winnings to Lucky Dog Rescue.

Ms. Ashley Owen Hill, Founder of Lucky Dog Rescue

Thousands of votes later Maria won the contest, on behalf of Lucky Dog Rescue. When 1-800-flowers contacted her for an address to send the winnings, she gave them Lucky Dog’s address.

Days, weeks and months passed, but Lucky Dog rescue still had no dog food. Maria then reached out to the company for more info, but she never heard back from them. So one day, Ashley Owen Hill, the Founder of Lucky Dog Rescue contacted 1-800-Flowers to find out what happened to the food for her rescue dogs.

Ashley’s attempt to contact someone who could giver her some answers proved to be quite a battle; she contacted representatives who had no idea the contest ever took place, laughed and told her that they were a flower company and that ‘they didn’t do dog food’ and that she was ‘clearly misinformed.’ Ashley continued to be transferred and redirected to no one who was willing or able to help her.

One of the last representatives she spoke with offered to take her number with the promise of a call back; when he did call back- the representative acknowledged the contest and that Maria Mandel was the winner. However, the representative informed her that the prize was “non-transferrable” and by Maria requesting that the food be shipped to Lucky Dog rescue it made the winnings null and void.

When 1-800-Flowers posted the contest it stated: ‘No clear Official Rules, Entry Frequency, Country Restriction, or Age Requirement’ and when Ashley told that to the representative He responded: “I’m sorry if the rules weren’t clearly stated, ma’am”; Ashley proceeded to ask him how can there be rules if non are stated, and if the company was clearly intent on not honoring the promised winnings for someone who entered the contest from the start advertising that she was going to give her winnings to an animal charity- she got a ‘yes ma’am’ in response.

At that time Ms.Owen Hill asked if she could please speak with someone else, since she felt that speaking with this representative was not going to assist her in getting any answers. The representative did not give her any phone numbers- but gave her email addresses, which she has since written to several times and has gotten zero responses.

Thousands of people, many of which who voted in the contest, have tried to contact 1-800-Flowers in response to this outcome. Any/all Facebook comments are deleted and no e-mails or phone calls are returned.

Members of the pet community are not taking it lightly: Ashley Owen Hill has posted a note to Facebook that has been shared close to 900 times, PetsAdviser has also written a story about it- encouraging anyone who is upset to log their complaints on the 1-800-Flowers Website.

I personally have reached out to Lucky Dog Rescue, offering a package I intended to give away here on Blog Four Paws, consisting of several bags of treats as well as some wet and dry dog food. I am also reaching out to media stations in the Mississippi area and sharing this story with them, in hopes that 1-800Flowers (a company that made $700 million in revenue in 2009) will come forward and give all of us the answers we are looking for.

Thanks to all the attention from the animal community and people like Ashley Owen Hill, Lauren Mcgregor, the 42,000 Twitter followers of @DogFiles and @PetsPhotography and so many others, !-800 Flowers has issued an apology and promise…..At 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, we pride ourselves on offering creative and engaging contests for our customers. We apologize that there has been a misunderstanding about the prize fulfillment regarding our recent There’s a New Bunny In Town. We are looking into the matter immediately and we promise to follow up with the winner to ensure the prize is fulfilled appropriately.

guest

Yeah fucking right.

Annstarrr

I’ll believe it when the promised reward shows up. Way to try to wiggle out of giving a promised prize to charity.

Displaced Nyer

Send this to consumerist. tips@consumerist.com. The publicity from this blog often helps people get resolution.

http://www.facebook.com/stevenward84 Steven Ward

From 1-800-Flowers Facebook page 45min ago
”
We apologize for the miscommunication regarding the prize fulfillment for our recent contest “There’s A New Bunny In Town”. We pride ourselves on offering fun and engaging contests; especially, contests that promote the well-being of pets. We are happy that we were able to correct the matter and we look forward to fulfilling the prizes to the winner in support of Lucky Dog Rescue.”

About Me

Having been in the animal business since childhood, then getting engaged to a tech fanatic later in life, it was inevitable that a site like this would come to fruition. I love animals of all shapes and sizes, particularly dogs. We have two dogs of our own at the moment, a Spaniel Mix named Padfoot and a Great Dane named Nymphadora Tonks. For more info, check out the About page.